1.He
Knows Jack

Master whiskey distiller Jimmy
Bedford's visit to Hy-Vee Food Store in Johnston last week drew a crowd, from a
man named Jack Daniel to the driver of the Oscar Mayer Wienermobile.

Bedford, who oversees the making of Jack Daniels,
autographed a bottle of the whiskey for Jack Daniel Creason of Des Moines. The
20-year-old was named "for what his daddy drinks," said his mother,
Tracy Creason.

Michelle Norton, who drives the hot-dog shaped
vehicle, stopped by as a courtesy, from one promotion professional to another.
Norton, of Johnston, was leaving for Omaha for an Oscar Meyer promotion,
"but I heard Jimmy was here and I had to stop in to see him," she
said.

Norton watched the silver-haired Bedford patiently
autograph empty and full whiskey bottles and other Jack Daniel's memorabilia
for about 80 people. In a smooth, southern-tinged voice, Bedford answered
questions about Jack Daniel's in particular and whiskey in general.

Unlike some of the visitors, Norton is not an avid
Jack Daniel's fan. At times she has had a sip or two, "but never when I'm
driving the Wienermobile," she said.

Bedford is the sixth master distiller in the history
of the Lynchburg, Tenn., company.

Scanning the crowd, Joe Florek, Midwest sales manager
for the firm that distributes Jack Daniel's, said, "not a bad crowd for 9
o'clock in the morning."

Customers stood in line with hands or shopping carts
full of Jack Daniel's bottles, ranging in size from a few ounces to a
half-gallon. Mary Marrs of Ankeny had Bedford autograph an empty bottle
commemorating Tennessee's 200th anniversary as a state.

"I bought it in 1999 in Tennessee," Marrs
said. "I opened it on Aug. 30, 2003, when I got married."

Some fans were furtive. One man had Bedford use a
gold ink marking pen to autograph an unopened 1914 bottle. Asked where he got
the rare memento, the man, who would not give his name, simply replied
"connections."

"I'm not supposed to be here," he said.
"I'm supposed to be at work."

Chuck Raffy of West Des Moines brought in an old
ashtray, an official Jack Daniel's whiskey sipping glass, plus several
decades-old framed lithographs of Jack Daniel's advertisements. Raffy also had
a proclamation naming him Tennessee Squire 3446, issued to him by the
distillery.

Raffy said he became a Tennessee Squire because he
was unable to purchase the Black Label brand Jack Daniel's when it was
introduced in 1957.

"I called the distillery and asked where I could
get Black Label," he said. "They said they were sorry but they were
not distributing it in Manhattan, Kan., where I was living, but made me an
official Tennessee Squire instead" and occasionally sent him collectible
items.

Bedford asked if Raffy was still receiving
promotional items. Raffy said no, he had moved a number of times and lost
contact with the distillery.

"You are not receiving our mail anymore?"
Bedford said. "We will take care of that today. Right now." He took
Raffy's address, then signed all the memorabilia the West Des Moines man had
stuffed in a canvas bag.

The Johnston stop was part of a one-week blitz to 29
Hy-Vee stores in Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska and Missouri.

"I've been working for (Jack Daniel's) for 36
years," Bedford said. "I've enjoyed it. It treats its people well. It
is a good company with a good story behind it, an American company. All the
Jack Daniel's you see in the world was made and bottled in that little town in
that county in Tennessee. Every drop of it."

Bedford oversees the making of Jack Daniel's, from
ensuring the grain brought to the distillery meets standards, to overseeing the
distillation until it is stored in oak barrels, to mellowing and aging.

Does he use the product he promotes?

"Why, sure," Bedford said. "Sure, I
use it. If you use it in the proper way, it is good for you."

2. Attorney General Says Court Went Too Far:

Tom
Miller Wants the U.S. Supreme Court to Uphold a Conviction

for
Felony Drunken Driving

By Frank Santiago – Des Moines Register

January 21, 2004

Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller
will ask the U.S. Supreme Court today to revive a felony drunken-driving
conviction thrown out by the Iowa Supreme Court.

The case involves Felipe Tovar, a former college
student in Ames, who didn't have a lawyer before pleading guilty of drunken
driving.

Tovar contended that a judge should have told him
about the value of having a lawyer before he made the guilty plea. He had two
prior drunken-driving convictions against him when he was charged with
third-offense drunken driving in December 2000. The charge carries an enhanced
penalty of a year in jail upon conviction.

Tovar claimed an earlier guilty plea should have been
dismissed, allowing him to avoid the enhanced penalty. He alleged the plea was
uninformed and violated his constitutional right to have a lawyer. Tovar took
his case to the Iowa Supreme Court.

In a 4-3 decision, the Iowa court agreed that Tovar's
rights had been violated and that he might not have known the full consequences
of the plea without a lawyer's help.

Trial judges, the court said, should not be expected
to be a defendant's lawyer. "Rather, the trial judge need only advise the
defendant generally that there are defenses to criminal charges that may not be
known to lay persons," the court ruled.

Miller said Tuesday that the ruling went too far.

"We believe the rule crafted by the majority in
the Iowa court is not required by the Sixth Amendment and unnecessarily
diminishes a solemn admission of guilty in open court," Miller said.
"We disagree that a defendant who knows he was driving drunk but wants to
plead guilty and knows of the right to counsel must be cautioned that an
attorney might help find an overlooked, technical defense."

Miller claimed the Iowa court's ruling had affected
many criminal cases in the state and had made it difficult for prosecutors to
charge repeat offenders. Guilty pleas, he said, account for the majority of
criminal convictions.

Miller said the U.S. court was expected to establish
a uniform standard based on the case. He said several briefs had been filed
supporting his position, including those from 33 other state attorneys general,
the National District Attorneys Association and the U.S. solicitor general's
office.

3. Skips Restaurant a South-Side
Landmark

By Christina Smith – Des Moines Register

January 22, 2004

Sue Allen has always worked in the restaurant business. She
was a waitress at Skips Restaurant for years, then decided she wanted to run
her own restaurant. Eleven years ago she became co-owner of the restaurant, joining
owner Skip Backman as partners.

Skips,
located at 4000 Fleur Drive, has changed since it opened in the early 1980s
serving mostly hamburgers. Today, it serves a variety of entrees, from
blackened cod in a dill sauce to rib-eye steaks to jambalaya.

Skips Restaurant

WHERE TO FIND IT: 4000 Fleur Drive; 287-1820

WHAT IT OFFERS: A full lunch and dinner
menu, complete bar and wine list

OF NOTE: Skips does not take reservations
but recommends that parties of eight or more call ahead.

It
has also grown in the beverage area, expanding from selling mostly beer to
having lengthy wine and liqueurs lists.

Allen
said the most popular food item on the menu is probably the fresh salmon steak,
but there are other customer favorites too.

"There
really isn't anything that we sell more of than other items," she said.
"People like our pastas, large salads and the tenderloins that are the
size of a plate. But people seem to like our fresh salmon - it is absolutely
fresh."

Along
with the set menu items, Skips also offers a daily chef's lunch and dinner
special. Fridays and Saturdays are Skips' prime rib nights.

Although
the food at Skips is good, Allen said, it is probably the atmosphere that keeps
the regulars coming back.

"We
try to keep the atmosphere friendly. There is no waiting list of names, we try
to learn everyone's name, so you're not just a part of four to us," she
said. "That's what Skips is all about."

Once
a private residence, Skips is complete with a fireplace, linen napkins and low
lights, giving the restaurant an intimate feel.

Allen said
on any given weekday Skips serves 400 people, and a lot of them are regulars.

"Our
clientele is so loyal. A lot of people hear about Skips through word of
mouth," she said. "They call Skips the Cheers of the south
side."

South-side
residents Darrell and Karen Kearney called Skips their favorite restaurant in
town.

"My
wife and I come to Skips all the time," Kearney said. "There is a
consistency in the quality of the food and service. You get your money's
worth."

For
Allen, the hardest thing about owning a restaurant is the food cost.

"It's
a constant battle with food costs. You get to a limit on what you can charge
people," she said.

Allen
credits her staff with the restaurant's popularity.

"We
have a wonderful kitchen crew," she said. "Some of the wait staff
have been with me for all 11 years. That's history and that's what makes
Skips."

A bill
permitting Iowa municipalities to institute smoking bans has a good chance of
making it through the Iowa House, but it faces a tougher battle in the Senate,
one of the bill's sponsors said Tuesday.

Getting legislation
that would enable cities to pass smoking bans through a House committee could
pose some challenges, and Rep. Ro Foege, D-Mount Vernon, a co-sponsor of the
bill, said its battle through the Senate could also prove to be
"difficult."

An state Supreme
Court decision in May overturned restaurant smoking bans in Iowa City and Ames,
ruling that cities may not enforce stricter standards than the state's. Critics
have already expressed concern that it would "open up the floodgates for
cities," giving local entities too much freedom, Foege said.

Iowa City's
smoking ban, enacted in March 2002, required that restaurants collecting more
than 50 percent of their revenue in food sales must be smoke-free, with
violators facing a $25 fine. Although several restaurants remained smoke-free
after the law was tossed out, a handful of local establishments immediately let
patrons light up.

Foege, a member
of the Iowa Tobacco Use Prevention Commission who proposed the bill with Rep.
Kraig Paulsen, R-Hiawatha, said the cities' autonomy would only apply to
smoking issues. He described the bill as a "public-health
initiative," pointing to the $385 million the state pays in Medicaid for
smoking-related illnesses.

"If it ends
up in a committee that is not friendly to anti-smoking legislation, they could
bury it," said Rep. Mary Mascher, D-Iowa City.

"The people
of Iowa City have already been able to enact" the smoking ban, she said.
"The standards are such that people with families, the elderly, and those
with breathing complications really and truly don't want smoking when they're
trying to eat."

It remains to be
seen whether the Iowa City City Council would try to re-institute such a ban,
considering that two members were replaced in the election last fall. New
Councilor Bob Elliott said that while he understands the alleged health
concerns behind the smoking ban, he would not favor Iowa City re-implementing
such an ordinance. He would, however, favor a comprehensive county or a ban
that included Coralville and North Liberty.

"I think if
there is not a ban, people can vote with their feet," Elliott said,
referring to the establishments that remained smoke-free.

Daryl Woodson,
the owner of Sanctuary Restaurant & Pub, 405 S. Gilbert St., said state
government, not the city, should handle such decisions.

"If Iowa
City has a smoking ban and Coralville does not, it puts us at a competitive
disadvantage," he said. "It should be done at a state level, and
until that time, we ought to leave it up to customers whether they want to
enter certain establishments."

The
California wine industry hit bottom last year and is bouncing back as supply
and demand come into balance, eliminating the wine glut that has pushed down
wine and grape prices since 2000, industry experts said Wednesday in Santa
Rosa.

The
sea of surplus wine is dwindling as consumers drink more lower-priced wines and
financially strapped Central Valley growers pull out more than 100,000 acres of
vineyards. Mother Nature also helped ease the oversupply: Last fall's wine
grape tonnage was down from the previous year, helping cut wine inventories as
growers and winemakers move into a new production year.

"We
no longer have a wine glut out there. There are excesses in some varietals, but
glut is a word we won't be hearing this year," Joseph Ciatti, owner of
Joseph W. Ciatti Co., a wine and grape brokerage business based in San Rafael,
said Wednesday.

The
end of the glut doesn't necessarily mean an end to the vintage bargains that
consumers have been enjoying, he said. Even as grape prices stabilize, he said,
wineries that make palatable $1.99-a-bottle wines will likely continue to
produce them for consumers who have become accustomed to good, cheap wines.

Ciatti
and Glenn Proctor, a wine and grape broker for Ciatti Co., were speakers at
Wednesday's Dollars and Sense Seminar held at Burbank Center for the Arts in
Santa Rosa. The annual conference, sponsored by the Sonoma County Grape Growers
Association, gives growers information on marketing and production so they can
remain competitive in producing premium quality grapes.

Ciatti
and Proctor said it may be a long time before grape prices return to the record
levels of the go-go 1990s, when wineries, enjoying soaring sales, were
literally knocking on growers' doors to secure grapes to fill their pipelines.

Proctor
said the market has moved to more value-oriented wines, meaning wineries will
be negotiating to buy grapes at prices that reflect the bottle price of the
wines they sell.

The
need to hold down wine prices also stems from fierce competition from
low-priced foreign wines from European countries and Australia. Proctor said
foreign wines, which comprise 26 percent of the wine consumed in the United
States, are growing in volume. Imported wines are up 12 percent over the past
12 months, with Australian wine up 43 percent.

The
light-yielding grape crop throughout California last year is credited with
easing the wine surplus and getting the wine industry moving out of the down
cycle. Although official figures for the 2003 crop won't be released until next
month, the Ciatti Co. estimated Sonoma County's tonnage at 153,000 tons, down
16 percent from 2002. Heavy rain in April and scorching heat spells during the
summer took a toll on grape production.

Grape
production also was lower in Napa, Mendocino and Lake counties, according to
Ciatti Co. estimates.

Proctor
said California wine shipments are up 7 percent from the same time last year,
with the "extreme value varietals," such as the $1.99 Charles Shaw
wine, better known as Two Buck Chuck, driving the growth.

"The
good news is we're selling more wine but we're selling it for less,"
Proctor said. He said many wineries are doing heavy discounting to sell wines,
with consumers responding by buying and drinking more.

Proctor
and Ciatti said the rebound will mean increased demand and higher prices,
compared to 2003, for chardonnay, merlot and zinfandel grown in Sonoma County.

More
troublesome is cabernet sauvignon, which continues to be overplanted in Sonoma
County in relation to its demand.

Proctor
said Sonoma County has 14,000 acres of cabernet grapes. He said nearly 30
percent is newly planted acreage, which will be coming into production this
fall and over the next few years.

"The
potential for an increasing supply of cabernet sauvignon will challenge the
market for the next two to four years," he said.

He
said if there's a big crop this year, it could spell trouble for pinot noir,
which also is overplanted. He said 40 percent of Sonoma County's 12,000 acres
of pinot noir haven't started producing but will begin to yield fruit this year
and in 2005 and 2006.

Proctor
said the light crop in 2003 stabilized pinot noir prices, with spot market
prices ranging from $800 to $1,500. But he said the potential for increasing
supplies of pinot noir could challenge the market for next two to four years.

The
spot market is the term for uncontracted grapes sold on the open market just
before or during harvest. Most Sonoma County grapes continue to be sold through
long-term contracts, although the percentage of contracted grapes is declining
as contracts expire and wineries decline to renew them.

Proctor
said the prices on the spot market for other leading varietals in Sonoma County
were: chardonnay, $500 to $1,400 a ton; zinfandel, $850 to $1,800; sauvignon
blanc, $700 to $1,300 a ton; and merlot, $800 to $1,500 a ton.

The
low end of these spot price ranges are generally half of what the varietals
averaged in 2002 in Sonoma County.

CESKE BUDEJOVICE, Czech Republic -- It's the battle
of the Buds. A nearly century-long trademark dispute is intensifying between
Anheuser-Busch, the world's largest brewer, and tiny Czech producer Budejovicky
Budvar. With both claiming they produce the only genuine Budweiser beer,
they've taken their sudsy squabble to courts in 24 countries around the world.

Budvar won the latest round in South Korea, where a
court ruled last month that the company's name and trademark doesn't conflict
with Anheuser-Busch or infringe on its rights. But elsewhere, the fight
continues.

"It's part of our business - a big burden, but
we've gotten used to it," said Jiri Bocek, Budvar's general director.

Budejovicky Budvar was established in 1895 in Ceske
Budejovice, called Budweis at the time by the German-speaking people who formed
about 40 percent of the area's population. Beer has been known here for
centuries as Budweiser.

The founders of Anheuser-Busch used the name for
their product because it was so well-known. The St. Louis-based brewer, founded
in 1852, began producing Budweiser, America's first national beer brand, in
1876.

Disagreements over the trademarks Budweiser and Bud
date to 1906.

"It's a dispute between an original beer
producer from a particular location and another one that just used the
well-known name of the location for its product made in the United
States," Bocek said.

Anheuser-Busch, however, claims it started using the
Budweiser brand in 1876 and registered it two years later, 19 years before its
Czech rival came into existence.

A 1939 agreement gave Anheuser-Busch sole rights to
the name Budweiser in all American territories north of Panama, but a clash was
inevitable as the two breweries expanded their exports. Budvar sells its lager
to 60 countries, while Anheuser-Busch says Budweiser is brewed in 10 countries
and sold in more than 80 others.

"Anheuser-Busch has unchallenged rights to the
Budweiser name in most of the world," Stephen J. Burrows, president and
CEO of Anheuser-Busch International Inc., said in a statement.

The battle of the Buds grew in the mid-1990s after
talks aimed at settling the dispute failed and Anheuser-Busch went to court.

"They were talking about a win-win situation for
both sides, but in our opinion, what they offered was a win-win situation just
for them," Bocek said.

Although trademark rights usually are granted to only
one rival in any given country, a court ruling in Britain allowed both brewers
to sell their versions of Budweiser there.

"It was an unusual decision, but consumers are
not confused and are able to tell the difference between the two brands very
well," Bocek said.

Meanwhile, Budejovicky Budvar remains a state-owned
company in this country where beer is both a source of national pride and a
major export. In 2002, Budvar posted a profit of US$10.3 million, and it
expects a profit of about US$13.3 million for 2003.

Budvar was to be privatized after the fall of
communism in then-Czechoslovakia in 1989, and foreign brewers including
Britain's Bass and Denmark's Carlsberg at one point expressed interest in
adding Budvar to their holdings. Foreigners already own Budvar's main domestic
rivals: South Africa's SAB Miller acquired Pilsner Urquel, and Belgium's
Interbrew controls Staropramen.

Czechs, the world's biggest per-capita beer drinkers,
seem content to keep Budvar in their own hands.

"I would never sell Budvar to
(Anheuser-Busch)," said Ivan Hoffmann, a businessman from Ceske Budejovice
enjoying a pint of Budvar with friends in a local restaurant. "Their beer
is sinister," he said.

Budvar lovers abroad share that sentiment. More than
2,000 people in Britain signed a petition in August by the Campaign for Real
Ale, a British consumer organization urging the Czech government not to sell
Budvar because it could fall into the hands of Anheuser-Busch.

"Budvar is a unique beer," campaign
spokesman Jonathan Mail said. "We believe the only way to protect its
long-term future is to maintain Czech ownership."

Budvar fans may well get their wish. Martin Severa, a
spokesman for the Ministry of Agriculture, said the company's privatization
"is not on the agenda."

But Bocek concedes the state might not own its
beloved nectar forever.